How to Unlove?

Do you love me? No.

Did you love me? Yes.

When I was little, I thought love knows no bounds. I used to believe that when you love someone, you love them as a whole; you love them even if they are sad; you love them while they sleep; you love them tomorrow; you love them always; you love them forever.

I thought love was an absolute thing; I thought it stays.

But, I thought wrong.

As what many people claim, love has tenses; it happens, but it also ends; it can continue, but it can also halt; it can be remembered yet can also be forgotten. Love is as bitter as the past, as sweet as the present, and as hopeful as the future.

I can never imagine how one can forget–all the things, memories, and stories that they once had. Mistakes win over sacrifices. Arguments rule over resolutions. Smiles become tears. Infidelity overpowers honesty. Hi’s become goodbyes. Pleasure turns to pain. Lovers become strangers.

And it kept me wondering…

How could someone love you today and wouldn’t on the next?

How could someone leave you as fast as deciding that they are in love with you?

How could someone say that he or she doesn’t love you anymore?

People have been endlessly searching for love and defining it in the most figurative way they knew. Some say they already know it, but some claim that love is an entity which will always leave people thinking. But the most intriguing question today is how someone can leave people and take away all the love they used to have? Is it really possible to claim that you don’t love a person anymore after everything?

I think it is a yes and a no. There are a lot of words which can translate or explain the context of ‘unlove.’

This includes but not limited to:

Hate

Oblivion

Fear

Hopelessness

Mishap

Dishonesty

Resolution

Technically speaking, if I’d be asked what the opposite of love is, the first thing that would pop out on my mind is hate. Not just resentment, but a burning rage that can crush a person’s soul. Replacing love with hate is a complicated process. The heart must have been overly exhausted with bad and unwanted memories that it never wanted to keep thus, makes you unlove the person you once loved.

On the other hand, when oblivion happens, coldness prevails. The warmth of each other’s company cools. The authenticity of promises is questioned. The memories are left suppressed, and the spark ignited by love fades. The heart forgets how it once felt ecstatic about someone and the mind ignores the essential reasons why he or she became in love in the first place. Thereby, letting all precious things drown to oblivion.

But there are also circumstances that don’t end up according to our expectations, or according to what we want to fight for. Sometimes, we become tempted of temporary pleasures and blinded by impulsive thoughts, which turn us risk takers despite the uncertainties waiting ahead. But such unknown possibilities may or may not be favorable. The ugly truth is that we are fond of taking chances yet we are never prepared for the huge unpredictable negative things that might happen. We tend to fantasize love over reality and confuse it with a fairy tale-like infatuation. We are used to promising false hopes, yet we don’t have the guts to make a firm stand. We tend to fall for the wrong people several times because we are just obsessed with the idea of being in love and we are never prepared for the responsibilities that come with it. And when we repeatedly commit the same mistakes of unloving people we used to love, the cycle of mishap continues.

But, not all goodbyes are bitter. Sometimes, people utter goodbyes because they believe that parting ways will lead them to something better. They want to grow up and become the better versions of themselves. Space create avenues for healing, awakening, self-growth, and tranquility; It creates a paradoxical gap which makes them separated yet connected at the same time–connected with their inner selves once again, and with the dreams they once thought they already left behind because of someone. When in reality, space creates divergence, as for relationships, it creates bridges. People, who believe that they need to unlove each other to give way to greater things, don’t unlove out of hate, dishonesty, fear, hopelessness, oblivion, or mishap. But rather, out of a resolution. They decide to end it up before they witness it fall apart.

The context of unloving people is quite broad because it may either lead you to something sweet or bitter. It takes a lot of courage to unlove someone, but I think it is braver to stay in love with someone even if things are unlikely to fall into the right places you have prayed for. Because as human beings, I believe that we are naturally pre-filled of love. I believe that loving people is always innate, a kind of act that can never be undone. I think it would be a terrible thing to happen because love makes us humans. When we forget to love, we forget to be humans.

Love is what we are.

In times when we feel hopeless because it seems unlikely for us to survive the pain, just always remember what we are made up of.

I believe that love can never halt, but can only be changed from one kind to another. One may stop loving a person now, but no matter who he or she is, one will never stop to love.

Despite the possibilities that a beautiful love story can become a tragedy, I still have faith that someday soon I will find someone whom I will never unlove now and whom I will love today, tomorrow, always, and forever.